


The Truth is Here

by AdamantEve



Series: If Stories Wrote Themselves [4]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Betty as Scully, F/M, Friendship, Jughead as Mulder, X-Files Inspired, written for #campbughead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-26 23:36:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21109046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdamantEve/pseuds/AdamantEve
Summary: A brief glimpse into the idea that Betty and Jughead are partners in the FBI, assigned to investigate the X-Files.





	The Truth is Here

Special Agent Betty Cooper’s eyebrow was arched so high for so long that her hairline might have moved permanently to accommodate.

That was, arguably, the natural state of her face since she got partnered with Special Agent Jughead Jones six months ago.

The very first day she walked into his incredibly messy office in the basement of the FBI headquarters at Quantico, her eyebrow had raised to a level that would make even Alice Cooper, her mother with the passive aggressive powers of a jealous Greek Goddess, proud.

All before he even opened his mouth and asked, “You must be Special Agent Betty Cooper. Or are you a doppelganger pretending to be her?”

Of course he had added that he was kidding, that he was just trying to clear the air because he knew what everyone said about him. To this day, she didn’t know if that was true, because the more she knew Jughead Jones, the more she understood that doppelgangers, aliens, radioactive swamp monsters, and ghosts were real things to him.

To him.

If she truly believed that all of that was hogwash, she wouldn’t be here, standing at the door of their office/basement, staring at the ginormous, blowup alien doll dressed in lingerie and a wig that had been left at his desk by their resident pranksters. In the background, the classic alien sound effects music played on repeat.

“They didn’t even get the good kind of alien blow up doll,” Jughead said in his usual, sardonic drawl. He went to his desk, tossed off the wig, and set the alien aside without bothering to deflate it, or even move it from his line of sight.

He sat in front of his computer and unsurprisingly began to work.

Betty gave a small, barely audible sigh and looked for the source of the music. It was, amazingly, an 80s boombox, probably recovered from even deeper in the FBI building, in the old storage rooms. She pulled the boombox out from under her desk and set it on her table, clicking the music off.

“This is completely unacceptable,” Betty muttered, rolling her eyes. “Absolutely unprofessional.”

“Don’t aggravate yourself, Cooper. This sort of thing happens in any office environment.”

“We’re adults, for goodness sake.”

“Or so you think.”

She shot him a look that said, speak for yourself, which of course made the corner of his lip lift ever so slightly.

Jughead shifted on his ergonomic seat to look at her. “I understand that their seeming half-assed efforts offend you, but believe me when I say this is one of their more inspired pranks. You should know by now that they’re not the most creative bunch.”

Betty pursed her lips and sat, regarding her partner with her practiced, dispassionate expression. There were a lot of things she found odd about Jughead Jones, but in spite of having come into this assignment thinking that her job was to shut this department down, what she’d learned from him in the last six months had changed her perceptions of the world, in the best and worst ways, which was, to her, invigorating.

Inasmuch as she could admit that Jughead’s conspiracy theories seemed, quite frankly, bananas, she had been bowled over by how incredibly sensible they often turned out to be. She was still a skeptic. That was her role in this partnership, but in her drive to play the Devil’s Advocate, she had inadvertently worked in tandem with him to find scientific proof to back up his seemingly far-fetched claims.

He was right in thinking she never half-assed things, and she remembered that at day 3 of their partnership, she had decided that if she was going to be sifting through the FBI X-Files as the partner of the infamous Jughead Jones, she would act exactly the way a partner should act.

“They don’t know a thing.” She said this firmly. Like she wasn’t going to stand for any kind of argument. “They’re ignorant and petty.”

“And sexist. Don’t forget that. Apparently they think that any sentient female species exists solely for the pleasure of cis men.”

Betty’s eyebrow arched yet again, but this time in amusement. Even as Jughead fully embraced the reputation of being the FBI alien expert, his Oxford honors smarts couldn’t help but make its way through his sardonic humor most of the time.

Jughead went back to typing in his computer and Betty resolved to let this prank drop. She didn’t think she could write up a complaint for this and be taken seriously. The moment she writes down “alien blowup doll” it would be over.

She was about to rifle through her own work when she spied an image on Jughead’s screen of the spiny, miniscule creature they had encountered in their last case, all the way in an Alaskan research facility.

As it turned out, she and Jughead had discovered that the creature was a parasite unlike anything Betty had seen in this world, which caused its host to turn violent in its efforts to survive, and of course Jughead had insisted that it was extraterrestrial.

Her recommendation had been to destroy it lest it infected anyone else. The outcome of any infection had been murder and attempted murder. This was not something that needed further study. Jughead had wanted it alive for proof. That aliens were already here.

She had no intention of changing her recommendation on her report. That case had almost cost Jughead his life. The parasite’s host had actively sought his destruction. That thing wasn’t a curiosity, or even proof that aliens existed. It was a menace and needed to be destroyed.

“Are you still going to request that thing’s preservation?” 

His fingers paused over his keyboard and a haunted look passed over his face. He was remembering his sister again, the one who disappeared decades ago, and whom he believed had been abducted by aliens.

He looked her in the eyes. “I will. Are you still going to recommend that they destroy it?”

She took a deep breath and nodded. That assignment had been cold and unrelenting. A week boiled down to the basest of human impulses. The parasite had only infected one of the scientists in the facility, but Dr. Da Silva’s influence over the violent events had been brutal and relentless. The level of paranoia it had caused in the group had driven the scientists to locking up Jughead in a freezer, and Betty had found herself helpless against the mob mentality to let him out.

She had relied on her medical and FBI training, of course. It always came through for her, and in this case, it still held true, but she had also relied on Jughead. She had put her full trust in him when she secretly let him out of the freezer.

Her answer clearly disappointed him and it nagged at her, that in this they were out-of-sync. They didn’t always agree–that was, in fact, the dynamic of their partnership that worked so well for them, but this time–this time…

“I know you think this will help you find your sister,” she began.

He continued to type, cracking a shoulder. The rest of his posture had gone stiff, and his facial expression had gone blank. He was shutting down. This was what bothered Betty the most. When he didn’t let her in. 

In spite of their objective disagreements, she and Jughead were unafraid to share each other’s thoughts and motivations when the opportunity arose to talk about them. She knew why an Oxford University graduate with honors and FBI academy honors decided to pursue the often maligned FBI X-Files, she knew why he pretended to be obsessed with porn videos, she knew why he was so often protective of her when their cases got rough, particularly when they were of the alien variety. She knew all this just as much as he knew so many things about her, so it bothered her when he closed himself off. This was not them.

“And maybe it would,” she continued.

“Then why are you telling them to destroy it?” he snapped back. His fist had curled on his desk, his gaze cold like ice. 

She knew this Jughead, too. This relentless, single-minded version of him that would stop at nothing to find the sister he believed was still out there and alive. Betty didn’t think Jellybean Jones was–alive, but she wasn’t going to let her skepticism kill Jughead’s faith. She knew he needed it. She knew it was what he lived for, and she cared enough for him to let him have this. And perhaps a small part of her hoped he was right, too. 

She didn’t know Jellybean personally, but she knew her through Jughead, and she couldn’t help feel invested in that sliver of hope. 

But this creature–this parasite, was a different matter.

“This creature almost caused your death, Jones.”

“Almost, but it didn’t. It–”

“It’s not worth the risk.”

She hardened her expression, as well. She was not going to change her mind about this. She had watched Jughead shivering in that freezer, had seen dead bodies turn up, had listened to the parasite’s host stalwartly demanding that Jughead Jones be killed because he was surely infected, and all Betty remembered thinking was that she needed time. All she needed was time so she could push up her sleeves and do what she did best: find the truth. She was meticulous and methodical by heart, and she couldn’t let her panic at Jughead’s mortal state distract her from saving him in the best way she knew how.

In the end, it was both her scientific methods and her faith in Jughead that got them both out of that perilous situation, but it was also science and morality that was leading her to drive this decision to destroy that creature.

That was her story and she was sticking to it.

His hardened expression softened, a soft sigh leaving his lips. “They’re probably burning down the facility right now, anyway. The moment I heard ‘quarantine’ the writing was on the wall.”

She said nothing. It felt cruel to agree with him.

“It was an interesting case, at least,” he finally said. “I never thanked you for believing in me. It meant a lot that you let me out of that freezer solely on my word, Cooper.”

“You’re my partner, Jones,” she said, turning in her seat to type on her computer. “What would we be if we didn’t believe in each other?”

“I’d be out of a job and you’d probably be on the fast track to director by now.”

He was probably right, but she scoffed. “Director. Stuck to a desk most days and only getting up to make nice with the powers that be? No thank you.”

She could hear the grin in his voice when he said, “You’d rather be stuck in a remote Alaskan facility with a killer on the loose, examining my body for alien life forms?”

She ignored the uncomfortable flutters in the pit of her stomach when she said, “Not like you didn’t get to examine mine, you know.”

He laughed, his fingers typing away. “It was the highlight of my life, Cooper. You have no idea.”

She swallowed, pursing her lips as she tried to think of a witty response and realized, with growing internal panic, that she couldn’t think of anything.

She would just have to concentrate on what she was doing. They were at work. This is what they did. 

She wrote her report, all the while thinking that if Jones didn’t stop smirking, she was going to press that player with the alien music on and suffer it together.


End file.
